![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjSo about a week ago I was working on a guest blog touching a few real-history examples of (possible) same-sex love affairs, and included the allusive (but far from certain) story of Duchess Margaret of Parma and the poet Laudomia Forteguerri (see this article). And while I was working on the blog, there fell under my eyes an anthology submission call for lesbian historic romance. Synergy occurred.
I reviewed the sources I had, dove into google and wikipedia to start putting together timelines and genealogies, came up with an overall romance arc, and drafted up a first paragraph. Somewhere in there I realized that I needed to find out exactly how much detail was known about where various parties were at various times, in whose company, and traveling by what routes. Fortunately, the bastard daughter of Emperor Charles V, who ended up being Duchess of Florence and Parma (in succession, not simultaneously), as well as long-term governor of the Spanish Netherlands, left a certain amount of reliable documentation in her wake. I've had to readjust some of my original ideas for wheres, whens, and with whoms, but the essence of my romantic plot has remained unchanged. And I actually rather enjoy having a much more solid real-history framework to embroidery my story onto. In addition to the inspirational article by Eisenbichler linked above, I am making great use of:
Steen, Charlie R. 2013. Margaret of Parma: A Life. Brill, Leiden. ISBN 978-90-04-25744-3
Out of the eleven chapters in this book, I've only read through the first in detail, covering Margaret's life from birth through age 34 when she left Italy to return to the Netherlands where she would shortly become governor. The text is detailed and well-documented while being thoroughly readable and providing sufficient background for someone who (like me) knows the outlines of 16th c. European history but may not be up on the nuances of the political struggles of Italy, France, and the Holy Roman Empire during that period. (And those nuances get very convoluted indeed.) The author takes a somewhat zig-zag approach, balancing themes of causation with strict chronology, which took me a little getting used to. It improves readability, in my opinion, but means you have to pay close attention to dates to avoid stringing events out of order.
The author takes a very generous line with regard to Margaret's romantic life--though only with regard to her marriages. He seems to look for excuses to assume Margaret admired, supported, and perhaps even loved her two extremely execrable husbands, rather than defaulting to the understanding that she had no choice at all about being married and little reason to view either marriage as anything but duty. With regard to the interaction between Margaret and Laudomia, he seems to have tried to erase the evidence for even a friendship, much less romantic feelings. He confines his mention to the bare statement "It was during her stay [in Siena] that Margaret also encountered Laudomia Forteguerri, a native of Siena with a reputation for poetry, beauty, and abilities as a warrior. The two became close and Forteguerri wrote five love sonnets to Margaret." Neither of the quotations from contemporaries that highlighted the intensity of the affection and interactions between them is mentioned. He even misspells Eisenbichler's name in the footnote.
Actually, this last is an overall flaw in the book. I regularly tripped over proofreading errors and errors of consistency, even missing words. You'd think that an academic press would have more pride.
I reviewed the sources I had, dove into google and wikipedia to start putting together timelines and genealogies, came up with an overall romance arc, and drafted up a first paragraph. Somewhere in there I realized that I needed to find out exactly how much detail was known about where various parties were at various times, in whose company, and traveling by what routes. Fortunately, the bastard daughter of Emperor Charles V, who ended up being Duchess of Florence and Parma (in succession, not simultaneously), as well as long-term governor of the Spanish Netherlands, left a certain amount of reliable documentation in her wake. I've had to readjust some of my original ideas for wheres, whens, and with whoms, but the essence of my romantic plot has remained unchanged. And I actually rather enjoy having a much more solid real-history framework to embroidery my story onto. In addition to the inspirational article by Eisenbichler linked above, I am making great use of:
Steen, Charlie R. 2013. Margaret of Parma: A Life. Brill, Leiden. ISBN 978-90-04-25744-3
Out of the eleven chapters in this book, I've only read through the first in detail, covering Margaret's life from birth through age 34 when she left Italy to return to the Netherlands where she would shortly become governor. The text is detailed and well-documented while being thoroughly readable and providing sufficient background for someone who (like me) knows the outlines of 16th c. European history but may not be up on the nuances of the political struggles of Italy, France, and the Holy Roman Empire during that period. (And those nuances get very convoluted indeed.) The author takes a somewhat zig-zag approach, balancing themes of causation with strict chronology, which took me a little getting used to. It improves readability, in my opinion, but means you have to pay close attention to dates to avoid stringing events out of order.
The author takes a very generous line with regard to Margaret's romantic life--though only with regard to her marriages. He seems to look for excuses to assume Margaret admired, supported, and perhaps even loved her two extremely execrable husbands, rather than defaulting to the understanding that she had no choice at all about being married and little reason to view either marriage as anything but duty. With regard to the interaction between Margaret and Laudomia, he seems to have tried to erase the evidence for even a friendship, much less romantic feelings. He confines his mention to the bare statement "It was during her stay [in Siena] that Margaret also encountered Laudomia Forteguerri, a native of Siena with a reputation for poetry, beauty, and abilities as a warrior. The two became close and Forteguerri wrote five love sonnets to Margaret." Neither of the quotations from contemporaries that highlighted the intensity of the affection and interactions between them is mentioned. He even misspells Eisenbichler's name in the footnote.
Actually, this last is an overall flaw in the book. I regularly tripped over proofreading errors and errors of consistency, even missing words. You'd think that an academic press would have more pride.
